If you put soymilk in your Starbucks, brace yourself for the sugar buzz

You’ve probably been wondering what the difference is between U.S. soymilk and Canadian soymilk.

Okay – you probably haven’t. But I have, ever since I happened to notice some nutritional differences between Starbucks products that contain these two different soymilks.

The Starbucks website (starbucks.com) has detailed nutrition information for all beverages and food items. And if you pick an item like caffe latte, for instance, you can choose from several types of milk, and then hit the “recalculate” button to find totals for calories, grams of fat, grams of sugars, etc.

This is where I found soymilk listed twice – once as “soymilk (US)” and once as “soymilk (CD).” When I compared the two calculations I found that the U.S. product has more calories, but fewer fat calories, compared to Canadian. U.S. soymilk also has less sodium, but way more carbohydrates and about TWICE as much sugar.

I imagine there are Starbucks customers who choose soymilk every day (believing the myth that soy = healthy), completely unaware that their 12 oz. caffe latte contains the equivalent of more than three tablespoons of sugars before they even ADD any sugar!

But don’t bother asking your barista to use Canadian soymilk. When I checked with my local Starbucks, they told me I’d have to go to Canada for that. So your e-Alert tomorrow might be a few hours late.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson